


drive like i do

by xiao



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, nothing happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-11-01 08:26:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17863856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xiao/pseuds/xiao
Summary: jihoon needs to get away. mingyu has the car and the valid license.





	drive like i do

**Author's Note:**

> this is an abandoned thing i was working on like 3 years ago. im posting it because i feel bad leaving it in the gdoc knowing i won't finish.
> 
> if anyone want to do the honors of taking the concept and actually executing it fully, you're doing a service to us all.

They live in an old town. The train buffers, misfit kids run off with traffic signs and spray paint windows on foreclosed houses. There’s nothing to do on weekends except get drunk in the park at nightfall. Jihoon lives partially in the woods, with a driveway made of gravel, so Mingyu parks before he has to turn down the narrow street, paint job on his hand-me-down truck compromised by the scratch of the low hanging branches. It’s hot out, the air is sweating, there are no streetlights this far into sleepy hollow road so he waits for Jihoon near the abandoned RV at the adjacent dead end.

A twig snaps, leaves rustle, all the light from the moon seems to gather at Jihoon’s red knees as he stomps through his neighbor’s damp lawn.

“You didn’t tell anyone, did you?”

Mingyu follows Jihoon’s gaze to his truck, where under normal circumstances, Soonyoung’s head would be halfway out of the window, but what Jihoon doesn’t know is—Mingyu can keep secrets too.

“Not a soul,” he answers.

Jihoon tosses his duffel in the backseat through the open window before climbing in. Plastic bags crinkle beneath his feet as he settles in, seatbelt abandoned. 

“You stock up?” Jihoon makes everything sound like some sort of gangster film noir, and Mingyu would make a joke about it if he weren’t capable of vividly imagining Jihoon making him an offer he couldn’t refuse over the barrel of a gun. In an ill-fitting pinstripe suit, slightly too long hair pulled back into the barest of ponytails. 

“Of course.” The driver side door squeaks as Mingyu pulls it open. Jihoon digs through the convenience store bags with a skeptical eye. “Don’t worry, I got you sunflower seeds and Doritos. Ranch to both. I’m not an amateur.” 

“You realize I’m not sharing.” Mingyu laughs, knowing the answer to Jihoon’s non-question all too well. Mingyu knows Jihoon too well. 

“How far are we going?” Jihoon blinks at Mingyu’s question, as if it hadn’t occurred to him that he had only told Mingyu where to be and when, and expected him to be satisfied following Jihoon through a tunnel of his own making, blind to the light ahead. 

His bewildered expression clears. Mingyu feels the familiar ache resurface as Jihoon’s smile spreads over his face, a time-lapse motion picture of the sun coming up over the horizon. He says, “Drive until I say stop.” The engine hacks and wheezes, splutters and whines before growling a promise to stay alive just a bit longer. Jihoon leans his head against the cracked window as Mingyu turns a U and hits short cut road to take them towards the highway. 

“Drive until we reach the end of the world.”

 

***

 

It’s a miracle Jihoon and Mingyu are even friends.

Mingyu, by Jihoon’s description, is a rare breed in the universe, a bastard dealt the best of hands. Unlike most of the inhabitants of the split-lip, spare change, backend town of theirs, Mingyu’s made of miracles. There is not a thing on this earth that doesn’t take to Mingyu like oxygen to an open flame. Clenched fists unfurl like flowers in spring, lush green gardens grow over the scabs of old wounds, a crooked smile shines in a light in a dark room. 

Mingyu’s a man made to fix what’s broken. He’s an unstoppable force, powered by his honesty and innocence; finding joie de vivre in the desolate landscape of a generation full of self-destruction.


End file.
